Reading a few Books
by sophieyu03
Summary: The campers and Olympians read Under An Earthen Sky, Change Through Flame and Fire Triangle. Disclaimer: All mentioned stories above belongs to NBrokenShacklesN & Rick Riordan.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter one: Reading Under an Earthen Sky**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. The characters belong to Rick Riordan, and anything in bold belongs to NBrokenShacklesN**

It was a usual day at camp. Campers were training, satyrs were growing strawberries, and so on. Leo was happy. He can stay at camp with his siblings, and have a bit of a peaceful day, not needing to worry about the wars, nor monsters wanting to kill you every second. Just as he was enjoying, suddenly, a blinding light whisked the whole camp away.

The light dropped them hard on the floor of a room, with half the camp screaming their heads off.

As the light dimmed, Leo recognized the room as the Olympus throne room, and twelve giant gods were staring at them.

Leo immediately bowed. He didn't feel like turning into a grease spot. He felt the other campers had also realized their surroundings and bowed respectfully too.

"Um…", Leo wasn't sure what to say, "What brings us here, Lord Zeus?"

"Um… Well, it wasn't me who got you...Which of you had summoned them?" even Zeus looked dumbfounded by the whole group of people.

Suddenly, two books metalized above Zeus, and hit him right on the head.

"Hey!" Zeus yelled. He picked up the books. "Who had done this? Apollo? Hermes?" he glared at them. Said gods shrugged, amused.

"Why don't you open the books?" suggested Leo. Well, sometimes he can be smart.

"Well," Zeus opened the book, a note fell down from the book, "There's a note."

He picked it up, and read it aloud, "The note read this:

_To the Olympians, campers, nymphs, satyrs, dryads, and Chiron,_

_I have decided that it is for the good to let everyone here read about the story of Leo Valdez. You will read the books I've sent you, for it contains important information. Only after you've read these books, will we be able to change the future. Also, a few guests might drop in during the middle of the reading, and they will have to listen to the stories too._

_Best regards,_

_Chaos_

Many campers screamed at the name of Chaos. The room was immediately in chaos. When the screaming and yelling finally ended, Annabeth asked, "So we are going to read this book?"

"I think so," answered Athena, "Who will read first?"

"I will," volunteered Zeus. He glanced at the newcomers, "You better sit down, this will be a long story." He flipped open the book, **"** **Prelude- Under an Earthen Sky"**

**Gaea won. The earth had changed, and there was no place for demigods anymore. Not in Gaea's world.**

Many gasped at hearing this. Except for Leo, who smiled sadly at the memory.

**"So that's it" Reyna breathed, her calm, untouchable praetorship act long since gone. Her eyes that had always sparked with life now dull and empty, as she looked round the bedraggled assortment of survivors.**

"Who is Reyna?" Percy asked Leo, who obviously knew something.

"A good friend," Leo answered, refusing to say anymore, trying to not let his tears fell down at the reminder of his old friends.

**Even though Greece and Rome got over their pride, in the end it was too late, the division that Octavian had caused was too much. Foes bear arms to the doors of death. Bear arms against each other.**

The gods paled at that. Seems like the romans and the Greeks had started a war against each other.

**"That's it " echoed Lou-Ellen hollowly; her eyes staring blankly into the distance, remembering the dying screams of her siblings. "We lost "**

**Reyna glanced up, then looked away, "Zeus " she mutters her voice cracking, "even our sky has died. "**

"What?! The sky had died?" Zeus yelled furiously.

"You see, Lord Zeus," answered Leo, "In my time, Gaea had destroyed the whole world, including Olympus."

Zeus grunted, but continued with the story.

**"No, " a voice croaked from beside her, Leo, whose warm brown eyes, were now cold with guilt and grief, "it's not dead, it's just become Gaea's, like everything else in this broken world". Leo never smiled anymore, and that said a lot for the state of the world, even when Percy and Annabeth fell into Tartarus he still managed to keep laughing, but now humor was just a distant memory.**

Beckendorf looked very worried. Knowing Leo, he could never stop laughing. But if he had indeed thought humor was a distant memory… Well, he could never imagine a Leo not smiling.

**A voice echoed from the other side of the circle "there's no point anymore, we all fought hard, but when she woke up, she was too powerful for us, like ants fighting Ladon, not even the gods could do anything!" The voice surprised her, because Connor Stoll had not spoken in months, not since he had been possessed by one of Gaea's minions and made to kill his brother.**

Connor visibly paled at that. Travis put a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him.

**"No point" echoed the last member of the bedraggled group; the nymph Echo, who had finally left Narcissus to his fate, and threw her lot into the war effort, but even the bubbly nymph was drowning in despair.**

**Leo gave a pained glance to the outside of the circle, where a jar lay, smashed into a million pieces. "Pandora's Jar is empty, we've lost hope. Gaea destroyed our hope."**

"What?!" almost everybody except Leo shouted in disbelief, "Pandora's Jar is empty?"

Hephaestus looked at Leo with worry in his eyes. What had his son gone through?

**"Why do we keep fighting?" Connor's voice broke, "There's no point to living, not when everyone and everything we love is dead."**

Everybody froze. The Connor they knew would never say anything that depressing. But they reminded themselves, that it was the end of the world, which they would definitely, most definitely, not allow it to happen.

**"We can't" Lou-Ellen whispered dully, her once ebony hair now lank and blood-stained. "There is no underworld anymore, Gaia destroyed it, our family is gone, faded into oblivion."**

**"And wouldn't oblivion be better than this! Just to not have to wake up tomorrow…"**

**"Agreed" muttered Leo "I'm tired of fighting, there's nothing left to fight for. The next group of monsters, I'm not going to fight, I'm just going to stay here and wait for oblivion."**

It was so strange, reading about the demigods they had thought they knew to lost hope. They never knew someone who loses hope can change so much.

**The quartet sat in silence for hours, till the blood-red sun dropped, and a crimson sunset spread across the muddy sky. A group of Cyclopes appeared and raised their weapons against the last free demigods.**

**Five bodies fell; and the world was silent once more, animals long since gone, endless foliage beautiful if not for the five cooling corpses, lying broken forever…**

**Under an earthen sky.**

Nobody said anything. The room was eerily quiet.

Finally, Leo decided to break the silence, "Who wants to read next?"

Hestia smiled, "I will." and got the book from Zeus.

Hestia read, "Change** Through Flame. Prologue.**"


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter two: Reading Prologue of Change Through Flame**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. The characters belong to Rick Riordan, and anything in bold belongs to NBrokenShacklesN**

Hestia read, "**Change Through Flame. Prologue.**"

**Leo regained awareness in a dark place. This utterly surprised him, as he was certain he was dead, in fact the last thing he could remember was an axe splitting his skull, and a searing, though brief, jolt of pain. He also knew that wherever he was, it wasn't the underworld, as he had seen it destroyed with his own eyes. This brought him back to where he could possibly be…**

"Leo, where were you?" Percy asked, not bothering to wait for the book.

"The story will tell you later." Leo smirked at Percy's disgruntled face.

Percy grunted, but said nothing more.

**"Leo Valdez, your fate was spun eons ago, I marked it out myself. But fate as I wrote it was ignored."**

**Ah, so there was someone there, and if they were talking about fate as if they wrote it, then they were obviously someone important, meaning Leo better bow, or face unpleasant consequences. Leo had learned the hard way that not bowing to deities ended you in hot water, a lot of hot water. Leo made to stand, in the process realizing that he had a body, and by Hades it hurt! Leo let out a pained groan, it felt like someone had taken every muscle in his body, stretched them twice as far as they should go, tied a few knots in them and added knife slashes for good measure. He promptly got reacquainted with the floor.**

A few campers winced at the description of the pain.

**"Um, I would bow your fate writingness, but my body has decided that the floor needs a long hug." **

Some demigods, including a few immature gods (*cough* Hermes and Apollo *cough*) snickered at Leo's joke.

**Just as he had said this, a warm breeze enveloped him, relaxing his muscles, and healing his injuries, a breeze that emitted from the being before him.**

**"Leo Valdez, you have been chosen to go back and fix the wars, many who should have lived did not, and many who should have died live still, the world as you knew it has now come to an end, and Gaia is fully awakened, she will continue to destroy all life, until she is the only being in the world. This was not my plan. Those who I had entrusted to uphold the fates I wrote has betrayed me, and they will be punished most severely. You however Leo Valdez, have the courage and the ability to fix these problems. Will you?**

**"You're offering me a choice? No offence sir, but that doesn't seem like the way most deities work."**

**"I am not most deities." The voice boomed. "I am the oldest, the most powerful, I am Chaos itself. Do not presume to compare me to those whom I created, demigod."**

"Really, Leo? How have you survived all those years dealing with the gods?" Percy said, punching Leo jokingly.

**"Right, no comparing got ya." Hades, thought Leo, looking round at the whirlwind that had suddenly ripped through the stereotypical white throne room. If this is Chaos when he's irritated, I do not want to see him angry. Leo turned back to the glowing being in the throne; he still couldn't work out anything but a vague outline of a humanoid figure, the brightness that Chaos was emitting would have blinded him had he still been in a mortal body.**

"Well, I see sometimes you aren't all stupid," complimented Percy.

"I won't be alive if I am, or would I?"

"You wouldn't. You'd be dead by now if you are."

**"I am giving you a choice demigod, because it is my fault that you were in the situation that you were, because I was not watching as well as I should have been. It is the least I can do to try and give you this last choice. You can either do what I am asking of you and save the past that desperately needs saving, or you can leave the past and continue into oblivion."**

**"Wow, saving the world, or oblivion huh." Leo thought that this would be an easy choice, if he had been asked this a year earlier, it would have been easy, he would never have chosen oblivion then. But now after all the fighting he was so tired, so weary of war, that oblivion now had a new appeal. To not exist, no worries or problems, no fears; no friends, no love, no laughter. Leo shivered; maybe oblivion wasn't such a good choice. He was Leo freaking Valdez, he lived to laugh, a place with no laughter, he was pretty sure he wouldn't like.**

" Have to say you are right. " Annabeth smirked.

**He looked back at Chaos, who seemed to be emitting a sort of approval, and asked "Why me, why not Reyna, Conner... Why me?" This was a question that had been bothering him ever since Chaos had told him of the fate changing thing.**

**"Because Leo Valdez" Chaos spoke in a softer tone "You managed to keep laughing the longest. You may not be the best fighter, or the greatest hero, but you have the strongest spirit, and that Leo is what I needed.**

**Leo gave a confused laugh, strongest spirit, what the Hades, and then froze. He laughed; he had laughed! He hadn't laughed since the destruction of the underworld, since Gaia had taken Hopes vase, and smashed it into a million pieces. Even that now seemed like a distant memory now, like he had, since being with Chaos, forgotten. Leo started to panic, he didn't want to forget, forgetting would mean losing all that he had left of his friends. He didn't want to lose them; his memories of the good times were all that had been keeping him sane!**

"I wouldn't like to have my memories wiped too." said Nyssa sympathetically.

**"Calm child" the commanding voice broke through Leos' panic attack and brought him back to reality. "I have not taken your memories away, merely dulled them, if you want to think on them you will be able to, I could not have you thinking of them always, should you choose to accept my offer, for you would be haunted by them all the time, and lose yourself in grief."**

**Oh, well now Leo felt stupid, but he had been so worried that he would lose what little he had to remember his friends by, that he sorts of lost it. He looked to Chaos. "Sir, I would like to accept your offer of changing fate sir, but I'm afraid that I don't really know how to do it, I doubt Kronos will stop by me flaming on in front of him."**

The gods narrowed their eyes at the mention of their father (or grandfather).

**"You speak true Leo Valdez, but I will guide you. When you arrive back on earth, you will find yourself beginning at Yancy academy, the school that Percy Jackson attended the year before he discovered he was a demigod. I will give you instructions on what to do, and when to do it, as well as providing you with anything I feel you need. Live well Leo Valdez and save as many as possible."**

**Then Leo was falling into darkness, and shrinking, and generally feeling a great deal of motion sickness, till he reached the bottom of what seemed like a dark tunnel and blacked out.**

"Well, that's the end of the prologue. Who wants to read next?" asked Hestia.

"I will," replied Leo, but as he reached over to get the book, a note appeared in his hands, " Wait, there's a note…"

Leo was cut off by a bright light, and when the light dimmed, he could see eleven people standing in the middle of the hall...


End file.
